Video: Lego’s New Museum Will Be Q*bert’s Dream House

The Lego House designed by Bjarke Ingels Group.

Countless designers say Lego bricks played a big part of their artistic development and brag about the impressive buildings they constructed as kids, but Danish architect Bjarke Ingels gets to make that childhood dream a reality. The Lego group commissioned the Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) to create a The Lego House, an experience center near their Billund, Denmark headquarters that will serve as a museum, store, and gathering point for Brickheads from around the world. The site will house rare Lego kits, feature artwork made of the plastic bricks, and is expected to draw 250,000 visitors annually — not bad for a town that only has 6,146 residents.

Lego bricks are all about free play, but the process of selecting an architect was highly competitive. “The choice fell on BIG after a competition where four architects were asked to design their idea for a Lego House based on our input,” says Lego representative Roar Rude Trangbæk. “In our competitions for the project BIG, had the best understanding of the idea behind the Lego brick, Lego play and Lego values and had integrated it into the building. At the same time they possess a wealth of experience in architecture.”

Ingels avoided the obvious design motifs in his proposal and instead offered a structure as minimal and modern as any contemporary art museum. Multi-colored bricks are used as accents, but Ingels instead tried to infuse the building’s structure with the interactivity Lego is known for. The Lego House features a series of terraces, equal parts Lego and Q*bert, that allow children to climb to the top of the building and experience the landscape from an entirely different perspective. A 1,900-square-meter covered courtyard is open to the public and free play. There will also be copious opportunities for kids of all ages to stack a nearly limitless number of bricks. Unlike other themed destinations, the Lego House encourages creativity over media tie-ins.

Construction on the 80-by-100-meter-wide and nearly 30-meter-tall building (approximately 60,000,000 2×4 Lego bricks) begins in 2014 and should be completed by 2016, if they can follow the instructions and don’t lose any parts.

The trademark multi-colored brick motif is limited to accent walls and play areas.The new Lego House combines minimal, modernist design with subtle references to the brand.